Professional Documents
Culture Documents
and open two-way communication with families and the community about the school, students,
needs, program and accomplishments (PSEL standard 8-C). The PLC that I am part of was the
committee that was in charge of producing the parent newsletter each month. However, after a
district initiative of implementing Restorative Practices, our committee took over as being the
Restorative Practices Committee and helping to give support and strategies to teachers in their
classrooms.
focal points was paramount to me as a future administrator, so I wanted to find a way to bring
back the monthly parent newsletter as my community outreach project with the help of my
After the completion of this project I looked at what I had initially aimed to accomplish.
At the onset of this internship, I aimed to focus on PSEL standard 8 subsections A, B, and G.
colleagues in order to create a system for publishing a monthly newsletter, I felt as though I
accomplished what I set out to do. The newsletter helps to create and sustain a positive,
collaborative and productive relationship with families and the community for the benefit of
my professional reflections were only in relation to a lesson I taught. I rarely stepped outside of
the planning and execution role and into the role of reflecting on myself as a professional. I have
FINAL PROJECT SUMMARY 3
learned how to reflect on the way in which I am communicating with families, with colleagues,
and with students. Moreover, I now reflect on how others view my role in the building and the
I have come to understand through my field work that communication is far more than
sending and receiving messages. and that "a leader who is truly a skilled communicator will
perfect the communications process and deliver messages using techniques or strategies that are
appropriate to the requirements of the situation" (Green, 2013, p. 134). In order to become an
effective school leader, I need to be able to build a culture of trust by staying connected to
faculty, students, and the community and acquiring feedback in a participatory manner.
In order to complete this task successfully, I also needed to use problem-solving skills in
the ability to overcome hurdles that presented themselves such as reorganizing our PLC meeting
time in order to accommodate both Restorative Practices and the parent newsletter. I also needed
to employ the ability to delegate critical tasks to others, which is a vulnerable place to be, and a
able to make decisions on the spot. I found this to be similar to the split second decisions I have
My biggest challenge during this internship was time management. I found myself
wearing so many different hats. I was filling in for whole days at a time as an administrative
intern, spending the entire day literally running around the building. I was managing how to
balance our PLC meeting time between our newly assigned task of developing strategies for
Restorative Practices and creating a parent newsletter for the first time all year. I was also
teaching my classes, taking classes, buying and selling homes with real estate, and also, my most
However, I think this is a realistic challenge for almost every administrator. How do you
deal with the day-to-day running of a school while also simultaneously being an educational
leader? There is enough to keep you busy just with the management of operations and that
excludes the time to work with teachers in order to help improve instruction. Time needs to be
strategically planned so that you can see classrooms, talk to students, and meet with parents and
The most important thing that I was able to accomplish during this internship experience
was enhancing my relationship with colleagues through the joint planning and execution of the
parent newsletter. As a result of this project, we were able to successfully complete a parent
newsletter for the month of March and created a sustainable system to continue with this model
Throughout this process, I learned that decisions that are made are not always within the
building principal’s control. This was something I saw being on the other side of the curtain.
There are so many variables in play such as legal issues, parent and student’s rights, negative
publicity, special education laws and rights protecting students that I couldn’t possibly see the
problem from the numerous angles it was being viewed by those in an administrative capacity.
Therefore, I understand now how those same decisions will be viewed by teachers in my own
building one day, and it reinforces how critical a level of transparency and an open-door policy is
References
implementing the professional standards for educational leaders. NY, NY: Pearson